


...And the Phantom Village

by angellwings



Series: ...And the Possibilities [2]
Category: The Librarians (TV 2014)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Comedy, F/M, Family, Friendship, I mean it's a little bit of everything really, Romance, Series, hypothetical season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-22
Updated: 2015-05-27
Packaged: 2018-03-14 15:37:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3416120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angellwings/pseuds/angellwings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Librarians are given a mysterious case that seems to make no sense. Episode 2 of "And the Possibilities."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Cold Open: The Appointment

**Author's Note:**

> No flashbacks starting with this episode. They served a purpose in episode one to fill in the holes in Jassandra's relationship, but now you're up to speed. So, no flashbacks. Also, if all goes according to plan this episode will have a short chapter, three long chapters, and a short chapter. Enjoy!

“Okay, this time,” Eve said cautiously. “Just try _moving_ the book to the table.”

Cassandra nodded and took a deep breath. “Okay, simple enough.” She held out her hand with her palm facing the pile of books on the floor beside of Eve’s desk.

Jake and Ezekiel backed away slightly as they’d both dodged various objects already. Ezekiel took a huge bite out of the apple in his hand as he watched. That same apple had nearly hit him upside the head earlier.

The book began to levitate as Cassandra focused her gaze on it and it moved very slowly toward the table. Jake’s eyes widened hopefully as the book moved closer and closer. And then…

Cassandra swayed slightly like she was losing her balance. Almost instinctively, Jake felt himself watching her instead of the book and edging closer to her. Just in case. He was glad he did too because moments later, just as the book reached the table, her knees buckled and her eyes rolled back into her head. He took two steps and easily caught her by the waist. The book dropped from it’s position two feet above the table and landed with a loud thud.

“Cassie,” Jake said worriedly. “You still with us, sweetheart?”

She whined softly and nodded her head with her eyes still closed. “Did I do it?”

“Yeah, kid, you did good,” Jake told her as he sighed in relief. When he was certain she could stand on her own he reluctantly released her waist.

She massaged her temples and sighed. “It’s not having the power that’s the struggle. It’s…harnessing it. Like I’m not in control of how much force I’m using.”

“And that’s why you need to practice, Ms. Cillian,” Jenkins said with a nod. “Also, a little reading might help.” He set a tall stack of books down on the table. “These are all the books The Library has on how the human body processes magic.”

Eve’s brow furrowed. “Somebody wrote books about that?”

“A long time ago, yes. Which is why they’re all in Latin,” Jenkins told her with an eager grin.

Cassandra had looked excited about the books but upon hearing that she deflated. “My knowledge of Latin is strictly limited to what I need for math and science.”

“You might be surprised what you can do,” Flynn told her with a smirk as he entered the room. He picked up one of the book and placed it in her hand. “Go ahead. Try it.”

She gave him a confused look but did as he asked. When she glanced at the page she could see the letters translating themselves. Her eyebrows rose and she gasped. “Oh my God! I can read it! I can read _Latin_!”

“Ow! What the hell was that?”

Everyone turned to look at Ezekiel curiously at the sound of his shout.

“What?” Jake snapped.

Ezekiel rubbed the top of his head. “Did somebody throw a book at me?”

All eyes drifted toward Cassandra and she glared back at them. “Oh, come on! That was one time! _One time_ I sent something flying across the room.”

Jake gave her a knowing look and grinned in amusement. “So, that cup of pens that I dodged…”

“Okay fine, _twice_. I’ve done that _twice_. But still, that time wasn’t me! I was over here, reading Latin. Which I can do now,” she said as her glare turned into an excited grin. “Because, you know, _magic_. Which is _so cool_ by the way!”

Jake smiled at her as he watched her return her focus to the book and then turned back to Jones. “Maybe it fell.”

He gave Jake a bored look and then waved his arms at the clear open space around him. “Off of _what_?”

Suddenly a small book lifted off the floor and slapped Ezekiel across the face. He stared at the thin book in shock as it floated in front of him before he finally tried to grab it. The book weaved away from him and then flew at Jake. Jake ducked and then immediately reached out and caught the book by the spine.

“See!” Ezekiel yelled. “I wasn’t imagining it! What is it?”

Jake glanced at the front of the small thin book and then held it up for the room to see. “It’s the Appointment Book.”

“It looks like The Librarians have unfinished business,” Jenkins said as he glanced at each of the people gathered in the room. They knew from experience that the things that ended up in the appointment book were difficult and tricky.

“Finally, an adventure!” Ezekiel exclaimed as he rushed over to Jake. “Helping Sabrina the Teenage Witch, here, was getting a little stale.” 

Cassandra rolled her eyes and smacked his shoulder. “You are not making that a thing.”

“Yeah, because Math Girl and Brain Grape never stuck around,” he told her with a cheeky sarcastic grin.


	2. Act One: Coordinates

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Librarians find an impossible place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is the last act for this that I have prewritten. I've got a little of Act 2 written. Hopefully I can keep up this posting once a week pace. I really like it. Anyway, here you go! Enjoy!

The pages started to glow and the book flew out of Jake’s hand before it spun in a circle and then dropped onto the table. Cassandra looked up from reading Latin and came to stand next to Jake at the table.

“It opened to a specific page,” Jake said as he picked up the book again. Cassandra peered over his shoulder at the book.

“Oh! It’s coordinates!” she exclaimed. She squinted at the page and then glanced up at the ceiling. Jake watched her mumble equations and move her hands as if she was rotating something and then she said, “Germany! They lead to Germany! Thuringia and the Dillstadt Municipality to be exact! Or somewhere just outside of it. Not much at those coordinates actually.” She turned to look at Jenkins. “Shouldn’t there be something else written in it other than coordinates?”

“Typically, yes,” he replied with a sigh. “But this particularly Librarian was never too concerned with the details. A lot like our own Mr. Jones, actually.”

Ezekiel looked up at him and looked genuinely offended. “Hey! I’m a theif! I would include more details than _that_.”

“Really?” Jake asked him. “ _That’s_ what offends you? Someone accusing you of not being _detail oriented_?”

“I memorize inventories and time security systems for a _living._ There’s nothing more detailed than that,” Ezekiel told him.

“We should check it out,” Cassandra said immediately. “The only way we’re going to get an idea of what this is, is to go to these coordinates.”

The Clippings Book suddenly glowed and shook and all eyes turned to it as well.

Flynn pointed to the book. “Oh! Two adventures! This is perfect! Lima was not the job you all thought it would be, yes?”

“Lima wasn’t a job at all,” Ezekiel told him.

Cassandra nodded in agreement. “It was all an S.O.S. from Viviane.” They gave her a questioning look and she tapped her temple. “Occasionally I dig up one of her memories in here.”

“So,” Flynn said brightly. “Now, you have yourselves a real mystery! An ambiguous appointment appears among us abruptly!”

“That was a lot of ‘a’ words,” Eve said thoughtfully.

“Apparently alliteration attacks aimlessly—“

“Stop,” Eve said sternly but the grin tugging at her lips completely betrayed her tone.

Flynn cleared his throat. “Right, sorry.” He then motioned to his three young Librarians and ushered them toward the Back Door. “Jenkins, set the coordinates from the appointment book! These three will tackle the tryst—I _cannot stop_. I apologize. Eve and I will investigate the clippings.”

Jenkins spun the globe and before they even realized it, the L.I.T.s were being shoved out the door into what should have been an empty pasture in the middle of Germany.

Instead they were skidding on cobblestones.

Cassandra’s brow furrowed and she looked down at her feet. “This is all wrong.” She spun around to look at the wooden guardhouse they’d emerged from and then the forest and river behind them before she turned back to the silhouette of the village at the end of the cobblestone street.

Jake crouched down to look at the stones. “Pitched cobblestone. _Old_ pitched cobblestone. We’re talking _centuries_ old.”

“That’s not possible!” Cassandra said loudly.

Ezekiel shrugged. “Looks like your typical old village in the middle of no where to me. What’s not possible about it?”

Cassandra’s eyes lifted skyward and her hands flitted through images only she could see. “The most recent satellite maps I’ve studied indicate there should be _nothing_ here. It’s an empty field. This village should _not_ be here. It can’t exist. If it did satellites would have captured it!”

She raced ahead of the other two down the cobblestone street and toward the village on the horizon. Ezekiel and Jake exchanged confused glances before they followed after her. The minute the full village came into view Jake understood Cassandra’s astonishment.

“There are at least four different generations of architecture styles here,” he said as he reached out and stopped both Ezekiel and Cassandra.

“So? There’s at least that many in London,” Ezekiel said with a furrowed brow.

“Not like this. Not all intersected and piled on top of each other,” he said with a shake of his head. “These buildings look like people from three separate time periods built them together and couldn’t decide which way was best. It’s…chaotic.”

“See? I’m telling you. This is all wrong,” Cassandra said with a shake of her head. They were standing just inside the huge stone walls that protected the village, observing the frenetic structure and Ezekiel gave a resigned nod. He had to admit, he’d never seen any town constructed like this.

And then a group of people came around the corner and things became so much more bizarre. Nearly every person in the group was dressed vastly different, and not just in color or in the type of garment, but in dated style.

“Edwardian, Victorian, Romantic, Georgian, and Elizabethan—“ Jake rattled off as he counted the different clothing styles and eras displayed in front of them. “That’s at least 400 years of cultural fashions.”

Cassandra turned her head on him sharply and grinned. “You know fashion?”

Jake rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly and shrugged with a sheepish grin. “Its art people wear. I have an appreciation for it.”

She smirked and nodded at him in response.

“Okay,” Ezekiel admitted as he glanced around at their surroundings warily. “I’m starting to see your point. Where the hell are we?”

He ran toward the stone wall and found enough footholds to climb up and sit on the very top ledge. He craned his neck to look around the village as well as the German landscape that surrounded them. The village was tiny, but crowded which is why the buildings appeared to overlap. There were vegetable gardens here and there dug out of holes in the cobblestone streets and small alleys that there used to fence in nearly pathetic amounts of livestock. Outside of the village, which he could now see was on top of a very tall hill, was a dense forest. It surrounded the village. There was a small river that surrounded every side of the village but one and there was only one small cobblestone bridge to cross it. There was no other way around the river. The bridge was a few paces away from the Guardhouse the Back Door had attached itself to.

Their only access to this village was the Back Door. Sure they could escape over the bridge if they had to but where would they go after that? He stopped his train of thought and shook his head. Why was he jumping to escape routes already? They didn’t even know why they were here. No reason for him to panic. He pulled out his phone and wondered if he could call Jenkins to see if he had any theories. But his phone had no signal. He held it up toward the sky but still there was nothing. They really were in the middle of nowhere.

“There’s no sign of another nearby village or any civilization at all, really,” Ezekiel called down to Cassandra and Jake. “And this village is tiny. Very poorly stocked on food too. Looks like if you live out here you’re pretty much stranded.”

“Another reason that there shouldn’t even be a village here,” Cassandra replied. “It doesn’t make sense.” She paused and then gave Ezekiel a worried glance. “Come down from there before you fall!”

He stood on top of the wall and grinned down at her. “I’m the world’s greatest thief, Cassie. I’m not going to fall.”

As if the Universe had heard him bragging, his foot suddenly slipped off the edge. Cassandra shouted and he barely caught the edge of the wall. He heard Stone’s heavy footfalls as he rushed to the wall but Jones fingers slipped before Stone could reach him. The fall was long but not short enough that he had time to correct his landing. He was going to break something. This would hurt. He braced himself but the impact never came.

He looked down and found himself hovering two feet above the ground. Both Jake and Ezekiel turned to look at Cassandra immediately. Her arm was extended and her hand was outstretched with her palm facing up as she concentrated on holding Ezekiel up. There was a long moment where he just let himself hang there before he finally said, “Thanks, Cassie. You can put me down now.”

She blinked and took deep breaths and they could see her willing the magic to let him go but nothing was happening. “I—I can’t. I don’t know how to—I’m trying but it’s not working.”

Jake gave Ezekiel a hesitant glance as if he didn’t want to leave his side, just in case Cassandra’s magic did something unstable, but eventually he left him for Cassandra.

“You can do it, darlin’. You know you can. You said yourself that’s it not having the power that’s the issue. Remember?” He said encouragingly.

Her breathing became labored as she struggled with the magic flowing through her. She wobbled and Jake nearly reached out to steady her but she caught herself and then straightened her shoulders. She closed her eyes and forced herself to breathe deeply.

Ezekiel felt himself lowering to the ground and was particularly impressed when his feet _gently_ hit the grass. He felt the pressure around his chest loosen as the magic lifted and he breathed a sigh of relief. Cassandra opened her eyes slowly and lowered her hand to her side and turned to find Jake beaming at her. She couldn’t help it, she beamed right back at him.

“I did it!” She yelled excitedly as she launched herself at Jake and hugged him excitedly. “He didn’t go flying into space or the wall or something. And I didn’t faint!”

“Yes,” Ezekiel said with a worried expression. The thought that might happen had never occurred to him. He winced as he remembered Morgan le Fay being slammed into the cavern wall and falling limply to the ground. “And for that I am _very_ grateful.”

Ezekiel watched his friends hug for longer than strictly necessary and rolled his eyes when Jake pulled away with a faint blush on his cheeks and a shy grin. If they thought they were fooling anyone they were severely mistaken.

“You did good, Cass,” Jake told her with a soft smile.

He rolled his eyes again. “Oi! Can we back on the case?”

“Everybody alright out here?” A new voice yelled from across the cobblestone street. An American voice. They all looked up in surprise and Cassie and Jake immediately stepped out of their embrace. “We saw the little guy fall from inside the bakery. Thought he might have hurt himself.”

“One of these things is not like the others,” Ezekiel muttered to Jake as he joined him and Cassie. The man in front of him was dressed like an American gunslinger from the old west. Minus the guns. He was blonde and blue eyed with a dimpled smile. “I’m fine, mate,” Ezekiel told him. “Caught myself and found my grip to climb down.” Probably wouldn’t be wise to reveal to a stranger that one of his friends saved him with magic.

He turned his dimpled smile on Cassandra and held out his hand to her. “Josiah, ma’am. Who might you be?”

Her eyes widened and she blushed as she accepted his hand. “Cassandra Cillian.”

He kissed the back of her hand and then turned to Jake and Ezekiel. “And who are your friends?”

“Um, Ezekiel Jones and Jake Stone,” she answered. She tried to ignore the stony look on Jake’s face as she attempted not to blush when Josiah kept a hold of her hand. “We’re the, uh, well—“ she couldn’t decide what to tell him so she went with the truth. Somehow it always worked out in the past. “We’re The Librarians.”

Josiah’s face broke out into a huge smile and he all but jumped in excitement. “He said someone would be back for us! I didn’t believe him, but I’m glad I was wrong! You all here to save us?” Before they could answer he dropped Cassandra’s hand, looked over his shoulder, and yelled in German. Neither Ezekiel nor Cassandra understood a word of it and they both turned to look at Jake expectantly.

“He said, ‘He sent them back for us. The Librarians are here.’ His German’s a little sloppy though,” Jake said in a grumpy tone as he crossed his arms over his chest. Cassandra quirked a brow at him curiously.

“Are you okay?” She asked.

“Yeah, just not sure I trust this guy. What’s a freakin’ cowboy from a John Ford movie doin’ in the middle of Germany in a freaky village that shouldn’t exist?” He asked in a whisper.

Ezekiel grinned and gave him a once over before he tapped his shoulder. “I don’t know if you realize this, but you’re a cowboy in the middle of Germany in a freaky village that shouldn’t exist too.”

Cassandra bit her bottom lip to keep from chuckling but a small soft giggle still managed to escape. She gave Jake and apologetic look when he turned his grumpy glare on her. “Well, he’s got a point.”

At the sound of Josiah’s yell the villagers came out of their homes and shops and formed a crowd around the three Librarians.

“So, all of these people expect us to save them, yeah?” Ezekiel asked the other two quietly. They nodded and swallowed nervously. “Right, so, no pressure or anything.”

“The real question is,” Cassandra said with thoughtful pursed lips. “What are we supposed to save them _from_?”


	3. Act Two: Germelshausen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now that they know what they need to do, The Librarians need to find out why and how.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys are enjoying this so far! I had a good time researching this particular danger they're facing. Feel free to let me know what you think in the comments! Enjoy!  
> angellwings

 

The villagers that had gathered around insisted on shaking their hands gratefully before they would leave. They had attempted to talk to them but none of them spoke English with the exception of Josiah. Jake had managed to talk to a few of them but it didn’t seem that he had managed to glean much information from them. Finally they dispersed and the three Librarians regrouped.

“Did you learn anything?” Ezekiel asked Jake.

“Not much,” he said with a sigh. “For people who are so grateful to see us they were sure tight lipped.”

Ezekiel glanced around suspiciously. If they wanted their help why were they so closed off about it?

“All I’ve managed to learn is that none of them are from present day,” Jake told them. “And that they seem to be trapped here.”

Cassandra bit her bottom lip as she thought and then her gaze drifted over to Josiah.  “Let me see what I can find out,” she said.

Neither Jake nor Ezekiel had time to ask what she meant by that before she turned and walked away from them.

“Josiah!” She called brightly.

Jake huffed as Josiah turned to face her eagerly and gave her a charming smile.

“What can I do for you, Lady Librarian?” Josiah asked with a grin as he tipped his hat at her.

Cassandra blushed lightly and smiled at him in return. “What happened here? All we can find out is that you’re all trapped but by what? How?”

“Well,” He said with a grin as he held his arm out to her. “Why don’t I give you the grand tour and we’ll talk about it?”

“That would be wonderful!” Cassandra said excitedly. “Can my friends come?”

“Of course, you’re all Librarians. We’ll need all of you to get out of this quickly,” Josiah told her.

Her brow furrowed as she waved Jake and Ezekiel over and then accepted Josiah’s arm by linking her arm through his. “What do you mean by quickly?”

He gave her a concerned glance. “Did the previous Librarian not tell you anything?”

“He left shockingly few clues,” Ezekiel told him. “Which, for the record, is nothing like me. I would have left rather large clues. Clever ones.”

Cassandra and Jake rolled their eyes at him as Josiah continued.

“We only have until sundown to save the village,” Josiah stated.

“What happens at sundown?” Jake asked worriedly.

“The village disappears from the earth for 100 years,” he answered in a matter-of-fact tone that seemed more casual than it should have.

Cassie stopped midstride and forced him to stop with her. “ _What_? Disappears?”

“Once every hundred years Germelshausen appears in this very spot and then disappears again as the sun goes down. We’ve all been living this way for several centuries now. Your last Librarian attempted to save us but he couldn’t pin point the type of magic that trapped us here. He didn’t know how to reverse it,” Josiah told him. “He said he would send someone back for us, but I never really believed him. Nor did I think that he would send _three_ of you. We may actually stand a chance this time.”

The three Librarians shared urgent looks. Cassandra immediately looked up to the sky to observe where the sun was in the sky and then down at the cobblestone roads and building shadows. Jake could _see_ her calculating the time of day in her head and then estimating what time the sun would go down. While she thought Josiah rattled off useless information about the town and it’s history while Jake rolled his eyes. This job had an expiration date. There was no time for a history lesson, though he had to admit he was really eager to learn about the different styles of architecture and the way they seemed to intersect. It was a hodge-podge of period architecture. It should have looked like a cluttered mess, but…it was rather beautiful.

“Does anyone know why the village disappears?” Ezekiel asked as they turned another corner.

“Not that they’ve told me,” Josiah answered. “All I’ve managed to learn is that they were cursed by a witch. I’m not sure why. They won’t say much about the witch either. They’re not exactly forthcoming this group.”

“Yeah, we noticed,” Jake grumbled. “That’s a little strange, don’t you think? How do they expect to get help if they won’t tell anyone what actually happened? Some one here has to remember.”

Out of the corner of his eye Ezekiel noticed a figure following them. It was small but stealthy and moved from dark shadow to dark shadow. He turned quickly and managed to catch the spy as they stepped into the light. He found a boy, no older than eleven with a pale tired face watching them all. No one else had noticed but him. The boy beckoned him over and then promptly took off in the opposite direction.

What choice did Ezekiel have but to follow him?

Jake was so focused and watching Cassandra and Josiah that he didn’t notice Ezekiel disappear. She still had her arm looped through his and Josiah kept staring at her. Jake knew she was gorgeous but did the man have to admire her so openly?

“Oh, I’m certain they remember,” Josiah said in answer to his question. “They just choose not to let me in on the secret. The rumor is that they burned a witch at the stake and she cursed them as she died, but I don’t know how much truth there is to that.”

Cassandra nodded thoughtfully. “In order to figure out how to undo it we would need to know more about how and why it happened. It takes longer to solve an equation if I don’t have all the factors.”

“Then,” Josiah told her as they left the alley they’d been walking through and wandered into a small grassy courtyard. “I suppose I’ll have to take the three of you to see the Elders. Maybe they’ll be willing to tell The Librarians more than they were willing to tell me.”

Jake wasn’t a botanist but he was pretty sure some of the plants in this courtyard weren’t native to this area any more. They looked very foreign to him. “So, how did a cowboy end up here?” Jake asked him.

Josiah chuckled. “I followed a woman. How else?”

Cassandra gave him a questioning glance. “What do you mean?”

“I was hired by this lady scientist to be her translator and muscle for, what I was told, was a research expedition. When we got here, it became a treasure hunting mission. See, she’d heard tales of this village and one of them said there was a store room of gold in here somewhere, which there isn’t. Why anyone would think a village located out here would be that rich I will never understand. They got a little rough with the villagers, I turned on her team and they knocked me out and left me here,” he admitted. “And that’s the short version.”

“That’s terrible!” Cassandra exclaimed. “They just left you behind?”

“It was that or kill me,” he told her. “I’m glad they picked this option. I’d prefer living here than being dead out there,” he said as he motioned to the village walls.

Jake rolled his eyes at Josiah’s tale of woe. He wasn’t completely convinced it was the truth. Josiah just seemed… _too_ charming. Suddenly, Jake remembered something. A German folk story he’d read years ago after helping backstage with his high school’s spring musical production. “Hang on, earlier you said Germelshausen.”

“That’s the village.”

Cassandra gave Jake a questioning look. “What? What’s going on? I know that look. You’re remembering something.”

“Germelshausen is part of German folklore. In 1860 Friedrich Gerstäcker wrote a story called Germelshausen. It was about an artist who fell in love with a young woman from a village called Germelshausen. The village sunk into the earth a long time ago, the story didn’t say when exactly, and was only allowed to appear on a certain day once every century. The Artist is forced to leave the village just in time for it to vanish back into the earth, leaving him separated from his love forever,” Jake said as he tried to quickly summarize the tale. “I read it in high school. It was, arguably, the basis for a musical that I helped build sets for—“

Cassandra gasped. “Brigadoon! Right? It was the basis for Brigadoon! Oh, I love that movie!”

Josiah’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Brig o’doon? Isn’t that a bridge in Scotland?”

“For a cowboy, you sure know a lot about the rest of the world,” Jake said as he narrowed his gaze on Josiah.

Josiah tipped his hat at him in a cool tone. “So do you, brother. Way I see it, you and I are cut from the same cloth.”

“We’ll see about that,” Jake said evenly. “Yes, it’s the name of a bridge in Scotland—“ Jake paused. “I thought the cobblestone outside looked familiar!”

“What?” Cassandra asked. She’d been distracted for a moment by the competitive tension that had risen between the two cowboys. “The cobblestone looked familiar? Doesn’t cobblestone look the same pretty much every where?”

“No, there’s different patterns in different locations,” Jake told her. “Brig o’doon, has a very distinctive pattern. The legend is the pattern kept out witches. The pattern on the road outside matches the photos I’ve seen of Brig o’doon’s cobblestone work exactly. The story about the witch may not be far off from the truth, Cassie.”

“So,” she said with a sigh and a nod. “We’re definitely thinking dark magic, then? Great. That’s always fun.” She turned to Josiah with a decisive look. “We will definitely need to speak with these Elders you mentioned.”

“Of course,” he said with a nod. “I’ll lead you and your two friend—“ Josiah stopped mid sentence and looked around the courtyard. “You did have _two_ friends, right? I didn’t imagine the third one. The one with the funny accent.”

Jake cursed as he craned his neck to look for Ezekiel. “You’d think the kid would know better than to run off in the middle of a village that’s going to disappear in a few hours.”

“Four to be precise,” Cassandra told him. “Sundown is in four hours.”

“Great, and we’re one man down,” Jake said with a huff.

“I’ll come back and look for him,” Josiah offered when he saw the worried look on Cassandra’s face. “I should really get the two of you to he elders so you can find out what happened here. You said the sooner you know the details the sooner you can start to work it out, right? So I should get you to the elders and then once you’re there I’ll come back and find your friend. He can’t have gone far and given his accent and his wardrobe he shouldn’t be hard to spot.”

Cassandra gave Josiah a hesitant look. “You might be surprised. He’s pretty sneaky.”

“I promise I’ll find him,” Josiah said again. “And I keep my promises.”

Cassandra sighed and then nodded hesitantly. “Okay. We don’t really have the time to waste I guess.”

“You know, Jones, Cass,” Jake said with a small teasing grin. “He was probably distracted by something shiny. Or a girl.”

Cassandra chuckled. “You’re right. He’s probably fine."

“Probably,” Jake agreed with a forced smirk. He wasn’t sure of that himself, honestly. Who really knew what Ezekiel was up to.

* * *

 

The boy led him further into the Village than Josiah had dared to. He’d followed him through twists and turns and through vacant dwellings and ruined store fronts until they reached the emptiest, and most likely furthest, corner of the village. The very last thing the boy did was climb down into a hole in the ground. Ezekiel stopped and peered down the wooden ladder into the hole. It was dark and it looked deep. It could be a trap.

He sighed and shrugged. He’d followed the kid this far and besides, it felt right, and his philosophy was always to do what _felt_ right. He climbed the ladder slowly and when he reached the bottom he realized he was in some sort of underground tunnel system. He saw a faint light further down the tunnels and walked toward it. As it got closer he saw the boy holding a lantern. The boy motioned for him to follow and then stepped through a doorway on the right.

When Ezekiel joined him in the room, he froze. The space looked and felt eerily familiar to him. There was a table with books and papers and manuscripts spread out all around and a hand drawn map of the town. It reminded him of Flynn’s chaotic desk at The Annex.

“He left. For you,” the boy said in broken English. “Der Bibliothekar. Left for you.”

Ezekiel nodded to the boy and then stepped closer to the table. One look at the hand writing on the map and he knew who “Der Bibliothkar” was. The hand writing was the same as the handwriting in the Appointment Book.

“Well, Jenkins, I think I found those details you wanted,” Ezekiel said with a smirk. He studied the information and found that he understood most of it. He expected to read notes like Cassandra’s, Flynn’s, or Jake’s. With formulas, social theories, or even history and facts he didn’t know. But that’s not what he found. He found schematics and observations and even written times of when certain people entered certain buildings in town. He found notes regarding interviews with townspeople. This Librarian had even mapped out an emergency escape route, which clearly he had used.

Turns out, Jenkins was right. This Librarian _was_ like him.

He leaned over the table and the boy brought over the lantern and set it down for him. Ezekiel thought about bringing Jake or Cassandra here, but he honestly didn’t know if he’d be able to find his way back. There were notes here that The Librarian must have brought with him to the village. There were excerpts from a diary of a team that claimed to have been there. He read over the notes The Librarian had taken, which started with what that team had learned about the village itself.

His eyes widened as he read and then he continued down the page to read the story of their harrowing escape from the village known to them as Germelshausen. He cursed as he read and then quickly tore the page out of the old notebook. He would need this. His eyes drifted to the map again and he grabbed that too. They needed to get out of here. Now.

Or else Cassandra could be in some serious trouble.

He turned to the boy and suddenly wished Jake was here. Or that he’d had Jake teach him to speak German. He had a feeling he would need the boys help to get them all out of here in one piece.

* * *

 

Josiah led them to a building in the very center of village. It was made of cobblestones and had two floors. Josiah knocked on the door and it immediately opened. Cassandra moved to step through but Josiah stopped her. He reached down at the base of the doorway and pulled out a cobblestone at the very center of the doorway. He sat it on the ground next to the door and them flashed her a charming smile. “It was loose. Wouldn’t want ya to trip, Lady Librarian.” He then motioned for her to lead the way with a broad sweep of his arm.

Jake rolled his eyes and followed the two of them into the building. Cassandra wasn’t _that_ klutzy. The guard by the door closed it behind them and he thought he heard the sound of a lock closing on the other side of it but he couldn’t be sure. At the far end of the room sat three older gentlemen, all looking very grim.

“Who have you brought to us, Josiah?” the man in the middle asked with a blank expression. “This had better be worth our time.”

“Yes,” the one on the far right agreed as he leaned back in his chair. “The last two you’ve brought to us have been a bit of a disappointment.”

“Not this time,” Josiah said with a smirk. “This one’s a witch.”

Cassandra tensed and Jake stepped closer to her. He glared at Josiah and shook his head at him.

“Yeah, you and I are definitely not cut from the same cloth, hoss,” Jake sneered as he slowly pulled Cassandra behind him.

“I saw her save one of her friends when he fell off the wall earlier,” Josiah said as his sinister smile grew. “He was floating above the ground. I saw it with my own eyes. She’s a _witch_.”

Cassandra gulped and gripped Jake’s arm nervously before she spoke. “You know, if I was going to be called something I think I’d prefer to be called sorceress. Witch just makes me sound so…evil.”

“She can save us,” Josiah assured them. “We can do it right this time. Release the curse.”

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Jake said as he glared at the Elders and Josiah. They weren’t even bothering to address them as if the presence of two additional people didn’t concern them at all.

“You said if we found and burned a _real_ witch then we’d be free,” Josiah said with a smirk. “The only problem was, no witch could get passed the bridge. The cobblestones kept them out and kept us from bringing them in. Well, here she is. She found her way _to us_. That’s fate! The way I see it, we burn her and we can all stay on solid land for the rest of our lives.”

Cassandra gasped and covered her mouth with her free hand. The other still had a death grip on Jake’s arm.

“Oh, _hell no_ ,” Jake said angrily as he glanced around the room for possible escape routes. He had to get Cassandra out of here. Fast.

The three elders glanced at each other and finally the one of them who hadn’t spoken sighed in resignation. “Fine, take them upstairs. If it doesn’t work we’ll be no worse off than we were before.”

“Do we need the man, Josiah?” The one in the center asked as he pointed to Jake. “Does he possess magical abilities as well?”

“No,” Josiah answered quickly. “But I’d keep him for insurance. The witch seems _attached_ to him.” Josiah seemed to recognize the look on Jake’s face because he smirked pointedly at him. “And don’t bother escaping. You know that cobblestone you noticed on the bridge? The Brig o’doon pattern that kept witches out? This building is built with that same pattern. The fault in the idea of keeping witches out, Jake, is that it can also keep them _in_. Cassie’s not getting out of here anytime soon. Not when she’s got magic flowing through those pretty little veins of hers.”

“The cobblestone,” Cassandra said softly. “You removed one of the stones before I came in.” She glared angrily at him. “It wasn’t loose! You had to move the stone or else I couldn’t have stepped inside this building!” She lifted her free hand with her palm up at Josiah and her eyes narrowed. Everybody kept telling her to practice her magic, well, now was as good at time as any.

The guards that had been standing by the door grabbed Jake from behind before he had a chance to fight them and then grabbed Cassandra before she’d managed to summon up any magic.

“Take them upstairs and lock the door,” one of the Elders commanded. “Keep a guard posted in case they get any ideas to try and escape.”

They tried to fight off the guards, but they were too strong and within moments they were locked in an empty stone walled room with one barred window.

Cassandra slid down against one of the walls until she was sitting with her knees pulled up to her chest. “I guess Ezekiel wasn’t the one I should have been worried about, huh?”

“Guess not,” Jake said through gritted teeth. He _knew_ Josiah couldn’t be trusted, but he’d suspected himself of jealousy and pushed it aside. Truth be told, he still wasn’t sure jealousy hadn’t played a part in what he felt. In fact, on some level he knew it had, but the point was…his mistrust had been proven correct. Josiah was a self serving snake.

And a murderer, apparently.

“What do you think Josiah meant by ‘this time’?” Cassandra asked. “He said they could get it right. _This time_.”

“I don’t know, sounds like to me, they’ve tried to burn people two times before this,” Jake told her. “Maybe he was talking about that.”

“Maybe,” Cassie said thoughtfully. That didn’t feel right though. Something about Jake’s answer didn’t fit. She sighed and put her head in her hands. “God, Jake, I’m sorry.”

Jake looked over at her sharply from where he stood by the window and furrowed his brow at her in confusion. “For what? What could you possibly be apologizing for?”

“If I weren’t here right now, you wouldn’t be locked up in this room. You wouldn’t have trusted Josiah and no one would be about to burn at the stake for being able to use magic,” she told him with a sigh. “My magic did this to us. Maybe it’s just as much of a curse as the brain grape. I mean, I can’t control it, I can’t use it when I need it, and when I do use it I come very close to hurting people! Plus, I can’t seem to stay conscious afterward—“

“That’s not true, earlier with Ezekiel you—“

“ _One time_ , that was one time! And that was mostly because you were there to talk to me through it. You won’t always be there, Jake. No matter how much I want you to be. I need to be able to do it on my own and I—I can’t,” she said in a shrill tone. He crossed the room and sat down beside of her so that they were sitting shoulder to shoulder.

“You can’t expect to have full control right away, Cass. Nothing works like that. You know that,” he told her as he reached over pulled a hand away from her face to hold in his. “It’s like with your synesthesia. We had to practice with the memories, remember? After a while you were able to bring yourself back down to Earth without me, but we had to practice it first. There’s no reason that can’t happen with magic too. You just have to give it time and have faith in yourself. The rest of us do.”

“I’m scared,” she admitted. “What if I end up hurting someone instead of helping them? We don’t even know what would happen if I happen to hallucinate while I’m trying to use magic. We don’t how the synesthesia is going to react to it. It’s unpredictable. I’ve hurt all of you enough already, I don’t want to do it again.”

“Sweetheart, the only person still harpin’ on your slip up with the Serpent Brotherhood these days is you. No one blames you for that. Not anymore,” he told her. “Not even me. If we’ve forgiven you for it, shouldn’t you forgive yourself? Hell, you saved Flynn’s life with Excalibur. You’ve done so many other things that more than make up for that one misstep. Even deciding to take that magic from Viviane was a selfless thing. You knew it would cause you pain for the rest of your life and yet you still accepted it. You knew the alternative was too dangerous. You gave up hope of a perfect and complete cure to keep this magic out of le Fay’s hands. You don’t need to keep torturin’ yourself over something that’s over and done with. Besides, you’re not going to hurt us with your magic. Not seriously, at least,” he said as he squeezed her hand and winked at her playfully. “I may take a few cup-fulls of pens to the head but if it helps you then it’s worth it.”

“One of these days,” Cassandra said as she placed her head on his shoulder. “I need to help you with something as much as you’ve helped me. It’s not fair, really. Not to you, at least.”

“Right now, I’d settle for helpin’ me get us out of here,” he said with a sigh. “Ezekiel’s still out there somewhere. If we had cell signal in this damn place I could try to call him,” Jake said as he pulled his phone out of his jacket pocket. “But we don’t. So I can’t.”

“Even if we get out of this room we’d have to get past the guards, the Elders, and the cobblestone doorway,” she reminded him. “And at this point,” she said as she glanced at the clock on Jake’s phone. “We have 3 hours until we disappear with the village. You know, unless they kill me first.”

She’d said it lightly, as a joke, but Jake had felt it in his bones. She was in real danger. If they didn’t get out of here these people would kill her. She’d just gotten her life back. She couldn’t lose it again. He wouldn’t let her die. He couldn’t.

He was at a complete loss as to _how_ he was going to do that, though. She was right, they had a lot to get passed in order to escape and it would be impossible to do from inside this room.

They needed Ezekiel.

“Where the hell are you, Jones?” Jake muttered under his breath.


	4. Act Three: The Escape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now that they're stuck, they have to find a way out. And this time, they may not come away victorious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long! I finally found time to wrap up act 3 tonight! I'll try to have the Tag posted by Monday! Hope this last act is satisfactory! Thanks for reading! 
> 
> P.S. - Bonus points if you spot the Leverage reference and also the Firefly reference. ;) They're probably fairly obvious.

Ezekiel managed to sign to the boy that he needed to get out of the tunnels. They made it to the surface and Ezekiel made his way back to the courtyard with the notes and the map. He heard voices in the courtyard and he was about to step out into the light when the boy yanked on his arm and pulled him back. Ezekiel gave him a strange look but then he recognized the voice.

Josiah.

“You lot head out to that guardhouse. We’ve got two of ‘em locked up but there’s still another on the loose. They came from that guardhouse and I’m willin’ to bet that’s where he’ll head next,” Josiah said in English. He paused and then started speaking German. Ezekiel assumed he was repeating himself.

Two of ‘em locked up, he said. Jake and Cassandra. They had Jake and Cassandra. And they knew where the Back Door was. They wouldn’t be able to get in, but they could keep the three of them out. Ezekiel needed a plan. He needed back up.

He needed Jenkins.

He signaled to the boy to follow him and then they both slid further into the shadows. They carefully ran from shadow to shadow until they reached the town wall. They waited for coast to clear before the exited the walls and headed for the guardhouse. There were three men surrounding the guardhouse. What he would give for Colonel Baird to be here right now. Three men stood between him and reinforcements. Before he could stop him the boy noisily ducked into the brush several feet behind him. Ezekiel’s brow furrowed. The kid was stealthier than that. Why would he…

The three men turned their attention the brush and when it moved again they ran toward it. Something flew out of the bush toward the village walls and then men followed the sound.

And left the guardhouse unprotected.

He’d drawn them away and caused a distraction. Smart kid.

He’d have to find a way to thank him. Ezekiel quickly ran into the guardhouse and shut the door behind him. The door slammed shut and Jenkins jumped and turned to him with a glare.

“There is no need to slam the door, Mr. Jones—“

“Cassandra and Jake have been captured by witch hunters!” He yelled frantically. He hadn’t meant to sound frantic. It just happened. He was never frantic. He was never attached to anyone enough to be frantic. What had this job done to him?

“ _What?”_ Jenkins asked in shock.

“Yeah, those coordinates were home to a freaky cursed village that is only on earth once every hundred years and is full of crazy witch hunters who most likely think they can save themselves by burning Cassie at the stake,” Ezekiel said in a rush. “Also, they know where the door is so we need to move it as soon as gorram possible.”

“Yes, because it’s just that simple to move a magical teleporting door around a cursed village in the German countryside,” Jenkins said dryly.

“Right, so get on it, man!” Ezekiel yelled.

Jenkins rolled his eyes at him and huffed. “Do you have a representation of the village? Something I can use to calculate a location?”

Ezekiel suddenly remembered the rolled up map in his hand and thrust it at Jenkins. “Would a map of the village hand drawn by the old Librarian do?”

The older man’s eyes widened and he nodded. “Yes, that would do quite nicely.” He took the map from Ezekiel’s hands and unfolded it on the table to study it. “This may take a few moments.”

“We don’t have a few moments. If we don’t get them out before sundown they’ll be trapped too and then you’ll be down to two Librarians.”

“Well, we certainly don’t want you to be the only back up to Mr. Carsen now, do we?” Jenkins said with a smirk. “Have patience, Mr. Jones.”

He sighed. “That would be a lot easier if a poor attempt at a Jake imposter didn’t have my coworkers held captive somewhere.”

“This is a very delicate calculation. It may take a little time,” Jenkins grumbled. “Science cannot be rushed.”

“Yeah, well, you’d better figure out how to rush it, mate,” Ezekiel said as he leaned against the wall next to the back door. “We’re on a bit of an urgent time table here.”

* * *

 

After about half an hour of sitting and wallowing Cassandra pushed off of the floor and walked over to the small barred window on the other side of the room. It glanced out over a town square where she could see people gathered. She squinted to focus on the square below them and then gasped sharply.

They were building a pyre.

Oh god, they were building a pyre. She had to get the hell out of here. The villagers were almost done. They’d be done in an hour, maybe an hour and a half if she were lucky. She heard shuffling behind her and knew Jake had come to see what had startled her. She stepped away from the window and stared thoughtfully at the stonewall they’d been leaning against. They needed a plan. They needed a way out. They couldn’t wait on Jones. They didn’t have time to wait on anyone.

Jake slammed a fist against the cobblestone window frame and then winced. Her head whipped in his direction and she was by his side in a flash.

“Jake, that’s not helping,” she told him as she worriedly examined his knuckles.

“I didn’t think it would, Cass. I just needed to…” His sentence trailed off as he kept his eyes on the pyre out the window. “It made me feel a little better.”

She gently traced a thumb over his scraped knuckles and then released his hand. “We have two options,” she told him. “Door or window.”

“That window is barred with iron. Heavy iron,” Jake told her he stared at his injured hand. “I doubt we can break one of them without something for leverage. Plus, the cobblestone around the window has the same pattern as the bridge and the doorway downstairs.”

“There’s a loose stone in the doorway,” she said thoughtfully as she bit her bottom lip. “If you go first you could remove it and I could get out.”

“We’d have to get through the locked door, down the stairs, and passed the Elders first,” he reminded her. Jake looked up but tried to focus on the wall passed Cassandra. He tilted his head slightly though when he noticed something. They were words carved into one of the stones. But they weren’t in German. “Cassie,” he said as he nodded to the wall behind her. “Look at the stone in the middle of the wall.”

She turned and stepped closer to the wall. She squinted until she spotted something. Letters.

“HIC IACET,” she read aloud. She blinked at the wall and the letters translated themselves just as they had in that book she’d been reading earlier. “It’s Latin.”

“Of course,” Jake said as he shook his head at himself. He should have recognized it but he’d been focused on German. “It says ‘Here lies.’ Like a gravestone.”

“Why would that be carved into the wall?” Cassandra asked. “Is it a morbid goodbye from a previous prisoner? Or somebody’s idea of a cruel joke?”

They both stepped closer to the wall to look at the stone and Jake grinned slowly. “No, I think it’s something else.” There was enough space around the stone for him to get his fingers around it and it jiggled. “It’s loose.” The stone pulled free and Cassandra peered into the space behind it. The hole was too small for his hands but Cassandra’s would fit with no problem.

“I think there’s paper back there,” Cassandra said as she squinted into the hole. She reached her hand in and pulled a face with one squinted eye and a scrunched up nose as she attempted to grasp the paper.

Despite their situation Jake felt the urge to grin affectionately at her. Even when they were about to die she was adorable or should he say _especially_ when they were about to die?

“Got it!” She exclaimed as she pulled her hand out of the hole. Jake replaced the stone as Cassandra looked over the paper. She frowned and handed it to him. “It’s in German.”

Jake took the letter and began to read it, translating the German in his head as he went while Cassie examined their surroundings. She tried to take in every detail and look for any weaknesses. If they had leverage they could maybe lift the door off it’s hinges and then open it in toward them. The problem was that they had no tools to create leverage. She would use her magic but at the moment…she was terrified of it. It was best to go with what she knew.

Math, she knew math. It had never failed her before. After calculations on the door proved fruitless she turned to face the window. It was barred, sure, but the bars were widely spaced. She could reach through them with her whole arm, not that she had tried. The cobblestone should prevent her from doing so. She paused at that thought. Although, how did they know really? Was she just accepting all folklore to be true now? What if Josiah had made it up to manipulate them. She hadn’t tried to cross a completed line of the stone. If she could get her hand out the window maybe the door downstairs wouldn’t be an issue. She looked back at Jake to make sure he wasn’t watching and found him still focused on the letter. She took a deep breath and stepped toward the window and slowly reached her hand out toward the bars.

“Hey, Cass, this letter is—“ He cut off his sentence and she heard him race across the room to her. He grabbed her hand back from the window and pulled her toward him. “What the hell are you doing?” He asked fearfully.

“How do we know Josiah was telling the truth?”

“What?” Jake asked.

“How do we know what he was saying was true? You mentioned the stones before he used the idea of them downstairs. What if he was lying?”

“And what if you get hurt?” Jake asked her in concern.

“Then I guess we’ll know, won’t we?” She asked him.

“We don’t know what will happen to you if he’s telling the truth,” Jake said warily.

She stared at him for a long moment before she suddenly ripped her hand out of his grasp and stuck it through the bars. She saw the air turn purple before a searing pain shot up her arm and into her chest and then shoved her back against the wall with a loud thud.

“Cassandra!” Jake exclaimed as he knelt down next to where she slid to the floor.  His hand felt the back of her head that had smacked against the wall to make sure she wasn’t hurt and then that same hand wrapped around her chin and forced her dazed eyes to focus on his. “Come on, darlin’, focus on me. How you doin’? Can you see straight?”

She blinked at him and then furrowed her brow and groaned in pain. “Ow. I think Josiah was telling the truth.”

Jake shook his head at her. “You had to prove him right.”

“I had to prove theoretical magic,” she told him as she tried to push herself up off the floor. Jake grabbed her arms and helped her stand. “I’m a scientist and mathematician. It’s what I do.”

“Maybe from now on you don’t use yourself as a guinea pig, alright?” Jake asked softly.

“I think that might be a good idea,” she agreed. Jake still held the letter in his hand and she nodded toward it. “What does it say? You were starting to tell me before…well, you know.”

“It’s signed _Der Bibliothekar_ ,” he said with a smirk. “German for The Librarian.”

Her eyes widened. “What? They kept him in here?”

“Josiah turned him in for being a sorcerer according to this,” Jake told her. “Used a variation of the con he used on us on The Librarian back then only before Josiah turned him in the Librarian managed to do a bit of his own research. He says he found a journal with an account of the village. He thinks it was an account from Josiah’s team.”

“And? Is he a big fat liar?” She asked eagerly.

Jake grinned at her but shook his head. “Not completely. He came out here with a research team, that was true. It was led by a woman, that was true. But she wasn’t the one who screwed it up. He was. He was the one looking for the treasure and the villagers captured him and were going to kill him but he heard them say something about needing to burn a witch and—“

“He told them the woman on his team was a witch,” she finished for him.

Jake nodded. “They burned her at the stake and nothing changed.” He paused and they both stood in silence for a long moment before Jake ran a hand across his forehead and cleared his throat. The reality of what could happen to Cassandra hung in the air and Cassandra wondered if she would ever be free of this familiar feeling of impending death. Jake continued and tried to move passed the moment. “The Librarian thought they kept Josiah alive because they thought he could be useful and because he spoke such good English. He turned in the Librarian to try and save face,” Jake told her. “But, as we know,” Jake said with a smirk. “Librarians are brilliant. The last line of this letter was about his plan to escape.”

“Anything we can use?” She asked hopefully.

“No,” Jake answered immediately. “They’ve changed the door from the one he described. He described an iron grid prison door not a wooden door. I have a feeling they learned from their mistake. Since he left a notation in the Appointment Book and Jenkins didn’t mention his premature death taking place in Germany, we can safely assume he survived.”

“But he didn’t use magic.”

Jake sighed. “No, he didn’t. The cobblestones didn’t affect him at all.”

“Right, so odds of his escape were a lot less impossible than ours are right now,” Cassandra said with a tired sigh.

“Cassandra, you’re not going to die,” Jake told her. “We’ll get out of here. We’ll figure something out.”

She chuckled dryly and leaned against the wall. “How?” she asked. “I’ve calculated every possible angle and every potential weakness and tried to run the possibilities of all the ways we could escape and you know what I’ve found? Nothing. We have no way out.”

* * *

 

Ezekiel paced and checked his watch. An hour and a half. Jenkins had been calculating for an hour and a half.

“This calculation is taking you longer than the Labyrinth. What is the problem?”

“You’ve seen my last two attempts, Mr. Jones, have you not? We kept popping up in the same place. We’re lucky those men hadn’t returned to their posts yet. For some reason I am unable to get any closer than the guard house. It’s almost as if something is keeping us out,” Jenkins sneered in frustration. This was confounding him and he did not like to be confounded.

“So, you can’t lock in using just the map,” Ezekiel said with a sigh. He glanced around the room as he tried to think of a way to help. “Maybe we need something else for the door to lock on to.”

“It’s possible,” Jenkins said as he squinted at the globe. “The Door may be able to lock on to an individual much like the Clippings Book sensed Morgan le Fay. It would have to be a very powerful individual though. Someone the Annex and the Library would sense much like the Ley Lines.” Jenkins looked up in realization and grinned slightly at Ezekiel. “Someone like—“

“Cassandra,” Ezekiel finished for him. His eyes immediately found her notebook at the other end of the table. He raced to it and then tossed it to Jenkins, who easily caught it. “Her notebook a good enough symbol?”

He nodded. “Perfect. I just need a few minutes for the calculations.”

“Good because a few minutes is nearly all we have at this point,” Ezekiel said as he started to pace again.

* * *

 

The construction was taking longer than Cassie anticipated. She estimated they should have been done with the pyre an hour ago. They were cutting it close. There was an hour left until sundown. One hour left and they still had no idea how to get out and had no idea where Ezekiel was. She knew him too well to think he’d bailed so she was officially scared for him. There was too much going on in her mind and she felt like she might burst from the stress.

Just as she thought she couldn’t possibly take any more the sound of construction and hammering stopped outside. Cassandra tensed from her spot next to Jake. They both hesitantly glanced toward the window. Neither needed to say what the lack of noise meant. They both knew the pyre was finished. They would be coming soon. Cassandra stood quickly and approached the door. No, that was the last straw. She needed to get out. No way was she going out like this. She took a deep breath and raised her hand to hover over the lock.

“Cassie?” Jake asked.

“I’m getting us out of here. I have to. We can’t sit and hope for a brilliant idea any more.”

She closed her eyes and focused her energy on the lock and the wooden door. She could feel the magic shifted inside of her and she decided to try and push it toward her hands. She furrowed her brow and bit the inside of her bottom lip. The Magic in her felt hot, white hot, and the heat flowed toward her hands and then her fingertips. She could hear Jake breathing. He sounded tense and his breathing was tight. Even with her eyes closed she could picture him standing next to her with arms crossed across his chest and his eyes watching her closely. The heat exploded from her fingertips but it didn’t burn. Her head ached and her chest felt like someone was crushing it. It was hard to breathe and it hurt. She ground her teeth and winced. She felt as if her knees might give out any moment but she managed to stand her ground and visualize the latch and the door again. But instead of the lock clicking open she heard the sound of iron scraping stone and then a loud crash. She gasped and opened her eyes at the noise. The heat of magic left her and the strength that had held her up vanished. Her knees buckled but Jake was there before she even came close to the stone floor.

“Did it work?” She asked weakly.

“Probably not in the way you intended,” Jake said honestly as he turned them both to the window. Her vision cleared and her eyes widened. The bars had been pulled completely out of the stone and were resting on the floor.

She laughed weakly and then tried to push away from Jake to stand. “I guess that works.”

“You even managed to break the cobblestone pattern around the window,” he told her with a proud grin.

“Now we just have to climb down,” Cassandra said with a sigh. “How are we going to manage that?”

“Maybe you should just take the stairs instead.”

Cassandra and Jake gave each other a surprised glance at he familiar voice that suddenly joined their conversation and slowly turned to face it. Cassandra smiled brightly at the image of Ezekiel leaning against the open doorframe while he twirled the keys to the heavy wooden door around his right ring finger.

“Hey, kids, ready to go home?” He asked with a grin.

“Never been happier to see you in my life, Jones,” Jake said with a smirk. “How the hell did you get passed the guards and the elders?”

“The guards took each other out. Not exactly bright those two. As for the Elders, they’re out inspecting the pyre. Admiring they’re handy work, I think. Shouldn’t take them long. So we should probably hurry,” Ezekiel said as he motioned out the door. He noticed Cassandra leaning against Jake and motioned between them. “You okay to walk, Sabrina?” He asked with a cheeky grin.

She separated herself from Jake and glared at the younger man. “I told you not to call me that.”

“Too late, you’re stuck with it,” Ezekiel said as he started down the steps. Jake followed after him and kept a wary eye on Cassandra as she trailed behind him. They got to the downstairs doorway that led outside and Jake kicked the loose cobblestone out of the way which allowed Cassandra to step through.

“Here’s the bad news,” Ezekiel whispered as they stopped at the corner of the building.

Jake huffed and glared at him. “Is now really the time for bad news?”

“Take what you can get, mate,” Ezekiel said with a shrug. “We had to move the Back Door.”

“To where?” Cassandra asked in concern.

Ezekiel wordlessly pointed to the bakery on the other side of the pyre. “Pantry door, in the bakery. Over there.”

“Dammit, Jones,” Jake hissed. “Are you telling me that we have to walk passed the villagers and the Elders to get the hell out of here? How are we going to do that? _How_?”

“I’ve got a plan,” Ezekiel told him. “Because I’m awesome.”

Cassandra rolled her eyes but gave him a small smile. “What is this plan, oh awesome one?”

“You see the kid standing by the pyre?” Ezekiel asked as he pointed the lanky boy in a tattered jacket and patched up slacks. “He’s going to cause a distraction and we’re going to sneak passed everyone.”

“And you think that will work?” Cassandra asked skeptically.

“It’ll have to,” Ezekiel told her. “Unless one of you has a better idea?”

Jake and Cassandra exchanged awkward glances before they both shook their heads without another word.

“That’s what I thought,” Ezekiel told them. “Now we wait for the distraction.”

A split second later the hay under the pyre lit up with bright flames and then the carefully placed logs fell over into a shapeless pile. The villagers scattered and the Elders attempted to find the culprit. They spotted Josiah searching the crowd for the person responsible as they snuck through the chaos. They’d worked their way through the crowd with Cassandra placed between Ezekiel and Jake and they’d almost made it to the door when an arm snaked around Cassandra’s shoulders and snatched her from out between the two men. They both turned to find Josiah holding his arm across Cassandra’s throat with a gun pressed carefully into the small of her back.

“I only got a couple bullets left in this gun, but if we can’t burn a witch then I guess shootin’ one will have to do, won’t it?” Josiah whispered into her ear. Her hands grasped his arm and tried to pry it away but he tightened his grip and the gun pressed harder into her back.

“You jackass,” Cassandra sneered. “How did I ever think you were charming? You’re a self-serving snake. You deserve to be stuck here.” He cocked the gun and Cassandra tensed. She felt the same white-hot heat that had ripped the bars out of the wall earlier build up in her hands at the same time the panic built up in her chest. The palms of her hands glowed bright white against the skin of Josiah’s fore arms and he cried out in pain as he practically threw her at Jake and Ezekiel.

“Bitch!” He yelled as red handprint shaped burns appeared on his arm. He turned the gun on the three of them.

Jake urgently pushed Cassandra through the Bakery door as Josiah’s finger edged toward the trigger and started to squeeze. He turned both himself and Ezekiel away but was afraid he would be too late. The boy who caused the distraction appeared out of nowhere and knocked Josiah to the ground. The gun dropped from Josiah’s hand and the boy turned to Jake and Ezekiel and waved them forward.

“Entlaufen!” He yelled.

Jake nodded and grabbed Ezekiel by the shirt and shoved him inside the bakery door just as Josiah picked up his gun again. The door to the bakery closed as the boy threw himself in front of it.

“Nein!” They heard the boy yell before a shot rang out.

“No!” Ezekiel yelled as he turned and headed for the door. Jake gulped thickly but didn’t release Ezekiel’s shirt. They couldn’t stop. Couldn’t go back.

“Oh god!” Cassandra yelled. “Is he okay?”

Jake ignored her and ripped open the pantry door with his hand that didn’t have a sturdy hold on Ezekiel. Sure enough, Jenkins was standing on the other side. “Go,” He told Cassie as he motioned to the door.

“But, the boy! We have to find out if—“

“Cassie, Josiah is coming through that door and we have just over half an hour before this place vanishes for good. Please go,” Jake said as he swallowed thickly and avoided her gaze.

She took in a shaky breath and nodded. Her eyes were watering but she didn’t argue and stepped through the door. One down, one more to go.

“Jones,” Jake said hoarsely. “We have to go.”

“We can’t just leave him!” Ezekiel said as he pulled against Jake’s grip.

“We don’t have time.”

“Without him I wouldn’t have been able to get to Jenkins or help the two of you escape! He led me in the right direction! We have to help him! He helped us!” Ezekiel said urgently. “Let me go, Stone! Let me go!”

Jake looked through the door to Jenkins with a pleading look. Jenkins gave him a helpless look and a shrug. He didn’t know what to do either. Jake barely knew how to handle Ezekiel when he pretended nothing bothered him. He definitely didn’t know how to handle emotional Jones. Especially not when Jake wanted nothing more than to rush through those doors and find that kid. But he couldn’t. They couldn’t. He didn’t know how to say this to Ezekiel. However, he never got the chance. Josiah burst through the door with his gun drawn on them before he could.

“What did you do to him?” Ezekiel asked with a glare.

“You mean the kid? He’ll be fine,” Josiah spat. “As long as he doesn’t bleed out, that is. You want him so bad, Librarian?” Neither Jake nor Ezekiel answered so Josiah continued. “Fine, I’ll trade you. The boy for the witch. Who will it be?”

Ezekiel heard Cassandra start to say something from inside the Back Door and he turned to give her a silencing look. She was safe and she was going to stay that way.

“You don’t even know that burning a witch will save all of you,” Jake said with a shake of his head. “You don’t know what caused this in the first place. What if you do burn a witch and nothing changes?”

“We won’t know until we do it, now will we?” Josiah asked angrily. “You’re really going to leave all of these people stuck here to protect _one woman_? I thought Librarians were about the greater good?”

“We are, but not when you plan on killing innocent people to achieve it,” Ezekiel said with a glare. “That boy did nothing wrong and neither did Cassandra. This is not the way to resolve this. You’ve all gone mad.”

“We’re doing what we have to. We have no choice,” Josiah said as he cocked his gun again.

“No,” Cassandra said through the door. “You have a choice. You’ve always had a choice. You just keep making the wrong ones.”

“Just remember, witch, this is all your fault,” Josiah raised the gun to Ezekiel’s chest. Cassandra gasped in panic and raced to the door. She reached through to swiftly pull both Jake and Ezekiel inside. She jerked them through the door as The Annex thoughtfully slammed the Back Door shut behind them.

“No!” Ezekiel yelled as he reached for the door and ripped it open. Instead of an old bakery he found a broom closet. “We could have saved him!”

“Ezekiel,” Cassie said softly as she placed an arm on his shoulder. “There was no time. Josiah would have killed you—“

“I don’t care,” He said as he took a deep breath and glared angrily at the floor. He shrugged off Cassandra’s hand. “We should have saved him. He was just trying to help us.”

“Even if you’d gotten to him, Mr. Jones, you couldn’t have brought him through the door. Not unless the curse was broken. Magic always has a price and we just don’t know what side effects he would have suffered when displaced from the village,” Jenkins told him. “He may not have survived outside of it.”

“He deserved more from us,” Ezekiel said finally in a soft tone. “He deserved a chance.”

Ezekiel turned and left the Annex without another word to his fellow Librarians.

Cassandra sat down at the table and stared down at her notebook with a blank expression and Jake shook his head with a sigh.

“He’s right. Jones is right. The kid deserved more from us,” Jake said softly.

“Many times in your life you’ll find that people deserve more,” Jenkins told them honestly. “And try as you might sometimes you can’t follow through with what they deserve. You may want to and you may try with all you have in you, but there will be times when all you have just isn’t enough. I think all of you may have learned that today. It seems to be a lesson that has affected Mr. Jones most poignantly.”

“I’ve never seen him so emotional,” Cassandra said with a sad sigh. “He must have really connected with that boy.”

Jake nodded. “Probably saw a lot of himself in him.” He rubbed his hand across the back of his neck as he stared at the floor thoughtfully. “It’s easy to get involved when you identify with someone.”

Cassandra nodded her agreement. “I feel like we should go after him.”

“He’ll be fine,” Jenkins assured them. “Some time alone may do him good. Besides, there’s no telling where he could be by now. He makes part of his living by hiding. We’d never find him unless he wanted us to. He’ll come back. Just give him time.”

“We made it back safe,” Cassandra said as she dug through the books on the table. She paused as she found the Appointment Book. She continued as she opened it to the last page. “But I don’t think we made it back whole.”

She was leaving copious notes in the Appointment Book. What happened to them would not happen to future Librarians. She would make sure of it.


	5. Tag: Brocéliande

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flynn and Eve return to The Annex after their mission.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this was supposed to be super short. I just wanted to tease something Arthurian and then somehow I ended up incorporating an idea I've been kicking around for a while and then a whole conversation that wasn't planned. It just happened. Apparently Eve and Flynn did not take kindly to not being very involved in this episode and decided to take their revenge. Enjoy!

The Back Door blew open and Eve and Flynn raced through and immediately closed the door behind them. They leaned against it for a moment to recover as Flynn patted his coat pocket and then sighed in relief. He hurriedly made his way to the Card Catalogue. They had the Library back but when they needed to find information in a hurry The Annex’s Card Catalogue was the best way to go. He furiously flipped through the cards and pulled the ones that he thought would be helpful. Jenkins came in from his lab and gave them a curious look.

“When did you two arrive?”

“Just now,” Eve said as she brushed the dirt off of her jacket and approached him. “How are the kids?” She blew a loose strand of hair out her face and crossed her arms over her chest. Business as usual.

“Home safe,” Jenkins said with a sigh. “But perhaps not so sound. The case didn’t go as they had hoped, particularly for Mr. Jones.”

Flynn started up the steps to the stacks to pull the books he needed. He raced up and down the steps several times in a hurry. Eve gave him a concerned yet amused look before turning back to Jenkins.

“I’ll have to get details later. Are they dealing with it okay?” She asked worriedly.

“As well as can be expected. So, what did the two of you find?” Jenkins asked as he too shot the noisy Librarian a look. But his was more of annoyance than concern.

Flynn interrupted him by pulling the ring out of his jacket pocket and holding it up for Jenkins to see as he came down the stairs with a stack of books.

“How in all of Tennyson did the two of you come across that?” Jenkins asked as he took the ring from Flynn.

Flynn’s head shot up. “You know what it is?”

“Yes, of course. The Ring of Dispel. Given to Lancelot by the Lady of Lake to protect him from magic and enchantments,” Jenkins said as he studied the ruby in the center. “It’s been lost for centuries.”

“The Ring of Dispel! How did I miss that?” Flynn berated himself as he dropped the books onto the table with a huff.

“Where did you find this?” Jenkins asked the couple.

“Brocéliande,” Flynn said with an excited smile.

“Creepiest forest I have ever seen in my life,” Eve said with a grimace.

“You know, some people consider it the most romantic forest in the world,” Flynn said with a teasing grin.

“Yeah, well those people have never been chased through it by ghostly knights, have they?” Eve asked him with a pointed glare.

“Probably not, no,” Flynn agreed with a  chuckle.

Jenkins smirked to himself before he spoke. “You found this in Morgan le Fay’s backyard. My will she be put out when she gets word of this. So this is what the Clippings Book led you to?”

“It would appear so,” Flynn told him with a nod as he stared down at the books he no longer needed.

“Fascinating,” Jenkins said as he continued to study the ring.

“What’s so fascinating about it?” Eve asked.

“Not the ring, per say, but the fact that The Library led you to this ring so soon after The Lady of the Lake came thundering into our lives. It’s an extraordinary coincidence,” Jenkins said as he wondered off into his lab. Presumably to find something to contain the ring in.

“I’m getting a little tired of that word,” Eve said with a sigh.

“What word?” Flynn asked.

“Coincidence,” Eve clarified. “We have far too many of those around here.”

After a certain amount of them, they stopped being coincidences and started to look more like calculated moves. But who’s moves they were she couldn’t begin to guess.

“Remind me, in the Annex and The Library we have Sir Galahad, The Lady of the Lake, The Crown of King Arthur—“

“The Grail—“

“We have the Grail?”

“How do you think The Library came to employ Sir Galahad?”

“And then on our list of enemies we have Lancelot and Morgan le Fay. You ever think we’re a little too involved in the Arthurian stuff?” Eve asked warily.

“Being involved with real life legends is part of what makes this job so much fun, Guardian.”

“Oh really? I thought it was the monsters and evil cults that did that, Librarian?” Eve asked with a half hearted grin.

“Eh, only sometimes,” Flynn said with a chuckle as he came around the table and stepped closer to her. He frowned when Eve didn’t smirk at him or react at all. Instead she looked off into the distance thoughfully.“What are you thinking?” Flynn asked.

“Coincidences make me nervous. Plus, Dulaque was a little too interested in us before, throw in Cassandra’s new Lady of the Lake title—“

“Trust me, Dulaque is not who we need to worry about,” Flynn said as he interrupted her. “Viviane raised him. He respects her too much to hurt her legacy. No, it’s Morgan we should be focusing on now. There’s no limit to what she’s capable of, and Cassandra’s control over magic is still a work in progress. That makes all of us vulnerable.”

Eve sighed. “They need a Guardian more than ever now, and I can’t be in two places at once.” She gave Flynn a hesitant look. “As much as I love working with you I think…I think I should stick to the kids for a while.”

“I can’t say I wasn’t expecting this,” Flynn said with a nod. “And I think it’s a good idea. At least until the Library finds us some help.”

Her brow furrowed at him. “You think the Library might bring us another Guardian?”

“The ratio of Guardians to Librarians has changed pretty drastically. No one would expect you to protect all of us at once, Eve. I’m almost positive the Library is already working on it,” Flynn said as he looked toward the ceiling. “Aren’t you?” He asked the room loudly.

A book fell from a shelf over Eve’s shoulder and she bent down to pick it up. She grinned and shook her head. “I’ll take that as a yes,” she said as she flipped through the book.

“What is it?” Flynn asked.

“A photo album full of previous Guardians, with one blank spot on the last page.”

“Let me guess, right next to your charming picture?”

“Charming? Why do I look so…stern?”

“I forget you didn’t see yourself in the early days.”

She turned and glared at her Librarian and he quickly held his hands up in surrender.

“Still you were charming. Absolutely charming. Dinner?” He asked with a smile. “My treat.”

“After today, it better be,” Eve said with a chuckle as she pulled his hands down from the air and looped her arm through his. “Lead the way, Librarian.” 

“Don’t mind if I do, Guardian.”


End file.
